Adverts by Project Wonderful

Hey, adverts can be pretty annoying, right? I know how it is; I don't like it when I'm browsing a site and I accidentally trigger an awful flash ad where a big, freakish iPhone starts singing at me. That's why here on the Let's Play Archive we'll only ever serve up nice banners that behave properly.

The Archive is a personally-funded hobby, and without donation/advert revenue we won't be able to keep it going. Please, if you enjoy the site, consider adding us to your AdBlock whitelist—it really does make a difference.

Introduction

What is this game?
Salt & Sanctuary is a 2d metroidvania-style game made by Ska Studios, known for their old Xbox indie game Dishwasher Samurai. In this game, players start off as part of a ship crew for a negotiation treaty, however that plan gets shot down once both pirates and a literal cthulhu ransack the ship and leave everyone for dead. Instead, everyone get's shipwrecked and its up to your character to figure out what happened and to try and rescue the princess from the negotiation party. By the way, did I mention there's a princess? Cause much like me, the game forgets as well quite promptly.

In terms of gameplay, S&S operates like a metroidvania with some heavy RPG elements. You run around, explore areas, get stronger by spending your souls-I mean salt dammit, fight the boss, and advance forward. Depending on where you go, you can get different powerups that will unlock new areas and let you find secrets in older ones, along with find gear that will help your adventure in general. Combat itself involves stringing together light and heavy attacks in a substantial manner while at the same time watching your stamina meter, along with either blocking or dodging attacks from the variety of drowned creatures.

And yes. This game is brazenly "Souls-like" by design. You aren't crazy.

Why this game?
While S&S is shamelessly wearing the Souls game's skin as its own, I still find a lot of the design aspects interesting, mainly from a level design standpoint. There's a huge, single-instance world out there with a lot of great challenges, puzzles, and fights in it, and I can't help but see the ingenuity of its design shine through some of the more goofy elements.

Plans for this LP
This is gonna be a gimmick run of Salt & Sanctuary through two means:

1. The game has an intended route that I have never taken and don't plan on doing whatsoever once I hit a specific point. Luckily I can still continue the three NPC plot lines this game has, but the fact that I can explore the game as I see fit was the big draw to me, and I intend to show just how far off the beaten path you can go if you're as stubborn as me.

2. As I recorded this, I noticed a challenge run called "Oar Only." This is the only way to get the oar in the game, so I figured why the fuck not let's do a Musashi run.

Co-commentator for this LP is going to be ThornBrain for most of the ride.

Adverts by Project Wonderful

Hey, adverts can be pretty annoying, right? I know how it is; I don't like it when I'm browsing a site and I accidentally trigger an awful flash ad where a big, freakish iPhone starts singing at me. That's why here on the Let's Play Archive we'll only ever serve up nice banners that behave properly.

The Archive is a personally-funded hobby, and without donation/advert revenue we won't be able to keep it going. Please, if you enjoy the site, consider adding us to your AdBlock whitelist—it really does make a difference.